Film students prepare to hobnob with stars at Academy Awards

Friday

Feb 28, 2014 at 12:01 AMFeb 28, 2014 at 12:14 PM

LOS ANGELES - Bryson Kemp looks camera-ready in his tuxedo. Bound for the Oscars, the 19-year-old is the picture of elegance. Then he turns around and reveals rows of safety pins snaking down his pant legs and up the back of his jacket.

LOS ANGELES — Bryson Kemp looks camera-ready in his tuxedo. Bound for the Oscars, the 19-year-old is the picture of elegance.

Then he turns around and reveals rows of safety pins snaking down his pant legs and up the back of his jacket.

The college student is being fitted for a custom tux for his first trip to the Academy Awards. It has to be perfect because Kemp will be onstage.

He is a member of Team Oscar: six aspiring young filmmakers from colleges throughout the country who will hand Oscar statuettes to the stars presenting them on Sunday night. Students are replacing the traditional trophy models for the second consecutive year.

“I feel so lucky and so honored,” Kemp said, while a fellow Team Oscar member got the safety-pin treatment. “And the other five winners — they’re crazy good.”

Chosen from more than 2,000 submissions, the winning six students represent various schools and filmmaking disciplines.

Besides Kemp, a composer studying at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania who dreams of scoring movies, the other students whose one-minute video entries won them an unforgettable Oscar experience are: cinematographer Zaineb Abdul-Nabi of the University of Michigan; director-producer Tayo Amos of Stanford (Calif.) University; director Nathan Flanagan-Frankl of Chapman University in Orange, Calif.; writer-

director Jean Paul Isaacs of Rutgers University in New Jersey; and animator-editor Mackenna Millet of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

Amos thinks the winners were chosen for “diversity — not only of background and geography but also interests.”

“I hope they picked me because they saw my passion for directing and big-picture productions,” the 21-year-old said.

Returning Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron decided last year to enlist the students.

“They are so wide-eyed,” Meron said, “and that’s the reason that we initiated the program.”